1. "Topic of Cancer" by Christopher Hitchens

In his essay appropriately titled “Topic of Cancer”, award winning author and journalist Christopher Hitchens attempts to explain to those without cancer, how it feels to those who do have it. Hitchens’s extensive list of literary awards include the Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction, the National Magazine Award for Columns, the Richard Dawkins Award, and, most notably, the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. In this essay, the main rhetorical device Hitchens sticks to using is metaphors in order to achieve his purpose of communicating how it feels to be diagnosed with cancer to his audience of those who haven’t been diagnosed with it. He begins with the metaphor of comparing himself and others diagnosed with severe illnesses to, “citizens of the sick country”. He then continues to describe his initial experience as a self proclaimed citizen stating that, “The new land is quite welcoming,” and, “Everybody smiles encouragingly and there appears to be absolutely no racism. A generally egalitarian spirit prevails, and those who run the place have obviously got where they are on merit and hard work.” By using this metaphor, it makes his experience of becoming a patient more easily understandable to the common person who has never had a severe illness, but perhaps has been to a new place or country allowing them to relate their experience to his. He continues his use of metaphors while comparing his cancer to an “alien” that, “had colonized a bit of my lung as well as quite a bit of my lymph node. And its original base of operations was located - had been located for quite some time - in my esophagus.” By using this metaphor to describe his cancer, the common person can relate what they’ve seen or heard about aliens in movies and science fiction, most often characterized by their hostile and invasive nature, to what it feels like to actually have cancer. Ultimately, I do feel that Hitchens accomplished his purpose of conveying how it feels to be diagnosed with and having to live with cancer through the use several specific yet very familiar metaphors.

Alien Invasion from http://www.scificool.com/the-alien-invasion-will-never-end-even-in-year-12/